vanity

Chapter Six

Isabella sat at her vanity.

The mirror showed a woman who had everything. A powerful husband. A pack that worshipped her. A life built exactly the way she wanted it.

She should be satisfied.

She wasn't.

Her phone was in her hand. She'd been gripping it for twenty minutes. Her knuckles were white.

She kept seeing it. The way Daemon looked at Irabella at the ball. That split second before he caught himself. That flicker in his eyes that Isabella had never once seen when he looked at her.

Recognition.

She set the phone down carefully on the vanity. Picked up her brush. Started pulling it through her hair.

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

Her reflection stared back at her. Calm. Composed.

Inside her head it was a different story.

What if he figures it out.

The thought had been circling since last night. Small at first. Easy to dismiss. But it kept coming back, each time a little louder.

What if his wolf already knows. What if that look at the ball was the beginning of something. What if one day he wakes up and the pieces click together and he looks at Isabella and sees exactly what she is.

What she did.

She put the brush down.

Five years. She'd had five years of peace. Five years of being Luna, of running this pack beside a powerful man, of finally having the life she deserved. Five years of Irabella rotting somewhere on the outskirts where she belonged.

And then she came back.

Same face as Isabella. Same bone structure, same mouth. But her hair was that dark wine red now, and something about her had hardened. She wasn't the same pushover who stood frozen at the top of the stairs while Isabella fell.

That version of Irabella was gone.

Isabella wasn't sure what had replaced her.

She stood up abruptly. The vanity stool scraped back across the floor.

She walked to the window. Looked out at the pack grounds. Everything neat. Ordered. Hers.

No. She would not let this happen.

She'd worked too hard. Given up too much. She had scars from that fall down the stairs that she'd never told anyone about. Three cracked ribs that healed wrong. A shoulder that still ached in cold weather.

She paid that price willingly.

Because the alternative was letting Irabella have him.

And that was never going to happen.

Irabella had always been the problem. Even as children, just existing, just being there, she was in the way. The true mate. The chosen one. Getting the thing Isabella wanted most without even trying for it.

It wasn't fair. It was never fair.

Isabella was the one who fought for everything. Who performed and smiled and played sick when she needed to and played sweet when that worked better. Who had spent her entire life making sure the right people saw the right version of her.

Irabella just stood there and the Moon Goddess handed her a gift Isabella would never have.

She pressed her fingers against the cold glass.

Well. She'd taken that gift away once.

She could do it again.

Her phone buzzed on the vanity behind her. She ignored it.

Irabella thought she could just walk back in. Attend balls. Wander around town. Exist in Isabella's orbit like it was nothing.

Like she hadn't almost destroyed everything.

Isabella turned from the window. Picked up her phone. The screen was cracked from where it had hit the wall earlier. She hadn't even registered throwing it.

She looked at her reflection one last time.

Irabella was a problem.

And Isabella was very good at solving problems.